The Girard Reader Read Online Free
Author: René Girard
racial, ethnic, and religious relations.
Retired since the summer of 1995, Girard is still actively engaged in thinking and writing.
His immediate project is a book on Christianity and myth, which is nearing completion.
"Christianity and myth" means for him not primarily the valid points of comparison, which of course must be noted, but above all the differences that disclose the truth of Christianity.
-6-
Part I Overview of the Mimetic Theory
-7-
Chapter 1 Mimesis and Violence
The most convenient single summary of Girard's mimetic model including its relation to the
Bible, is this article, "Mimesis* and Violence: Perspectives in Cultural Criticism," which
appeared in the now defunct Berkshire Review 14 ( 1979): 9-19. It is essential reading for the beginner in Girard's work, and may be useful to others who are already acquainted with his
thought.
If you survey the literature on imitation, you will quickly discover that acquisition and
appropriation are never included among the modes of behavior that are likely to be imitated.
If acquisition and appropriation were included, imitation as a social phenomenon would turn
out to be more problematic than it appears, and above all conflictual. If the appropriative
gesture of an individual named A is rooted in the imitation of an individual named B, it
means that A and B must reach together for one and the same object. They become rivals for
that object. If the tendency to imitate appropriation is present on both sides, imitative rivalry
must tend to become reciprocal; it must be subject to the back and forth reinforcement that
communication theorists call a positive feedback. In other words, the individual who first acts
as a model will experience an increase in his own appropriative urge when he finds himself
thwarted by his imitator. And reciprocally. Each becomes the imitator of his own imitator and
the model of his own model. Each tries to push aside the obstacle that the other places in his
path. Violence is generated by this process; or rather violence is the process itself when two
or more partners try to prevent one another from appropriating the object they all desire
through physical or other means. Under the influence of the judicial viewpoint and of our
own psychological impulses, we always look for some original violence or at least for well-
defined acts of violence that would be separate from nonviolent behavior. We want to
distinguish the culprit from the innocent and, as a result, we substitute discontinuities and
differences for the continuities and reciprocities of the mimetic escalation.
-9-
Violence is discussed, nowadays, in terms of aggression. We speak of aggression as an
instinct that would be especially strong in certain individuals or in man as a zoological
species. It is true, no doubt, that some individuals are more aggressive than others, and that
men are more aggressive than sheep, but the problematic of aggression does not go to the root
of human conflict. It is unilateral, it seems to suggest that the elimination of something called
aggressivity is the problem. Violence is also attributed by many economists to the scarcity of
needed objects or to their monopolization by a social élite. It is true that the goods needed by
human beings to sustain their lives can be scarce but, in animal life, scarcity also occurs and
it is not sufficient, as such, to cause low-ranking individuals to challenge the privileges of the dominant males.
Imitation or mimicry happens to be common to animals and men. It seems to me that a theory
of conflict based primarily on appropriative mimicry does not have the drawbacks of one
based on scarcity or on aggressivity; if it is correctly conceived and formulated it throws a
great deal of light on much of human culture, beginning with religious institutions.
Religious prohibitions make a good deal of sense when interpreted as efforts to prevent
mimetic rivalry from spreading
Retired since the summer of 1995, Girard is still actively engaged in thinking and writing.
His immediate project is a book on Christianity and myth, which is nearing completion.
"Christianity and myth" means for him not primarily the valid points of comparison, which of course must be noted, but above all the differences that disclose the truth of Christianity.
-6-
Part I Overview of the Mimetic Theory
-7-
Chapter 1 Mimesis and Violence
The most convenient single summary of Girard's mimetic model including its relation to the
Bible, is this article, "Mimesis* and Violence: Perspectives in Cultural Criticism," which
appeared in the now defunct Berkshire Review 14 ( 1979): 9-19. It is essential reading for the beginner in Girard's work, and may be useful to others who are already acquainted with his
thought.
If you survey the literature on imitation, you will quickly discover that acquisition and
appropriation are never included among the modes of behavior that are likely to be imitated.
If acquisition and appropriation were included, imitation as a social phenomenon would turn
out to be more problematic than it appears, and above all conflictual. If the appropriative
gesture of an individual named A is rooted in the imitation of an individual named B, it
means that A and B must reach together for one and the same object. They become rivals for
that object. If the tendency to imitate appropriation is present on both sides, imitative rivalry
must tend to become reciprocal; it must be subject to the back and forth reinforcement that
communication theorists call a positive feedback. In other words, the individual who first acts
as a model will experience an increase in his own appropriative urge when he finds himself
thwarted by his imitator. And reciprocally. Each becomes the imitator of his own imitator and
the model of his own model. Each tries to push aside the obstacle that the other places in his
path. Violence is generated by this process; or rather violence is the process itself when two
or more partners try to prevent one another from appropriating the object they all desire
through physical or other means. Under the influence of the judicial viewpoint and of our
own psychological impulses, we always look for some original violence or at least for well-
defined acts of violence that would be separate from nonviolent behavior. We want to
distinguish the culprit from the innocent and, as a result, we substitute discontinuities and
differences for the continuities and reciprocities of the mimetic escalation.
-9-
Violence is discussed, nowadays, in terms of aggression. We speak of aggression as an
instinct that would be especially strong in certain individuals or in man as a zoological
species. It is true, no doubt, that some individuals are more aggressive than others, and that
men are more aggressive than sheep, but the problematic of aggression does not go to the root
of human conflict. It is unilateral, it seems to suggest that the elimination of something called
aggressivity is the problem. Violence is also attributed by many economists to the scarcity of
needed objects or to their monopolization by a social élite. It is true that the goods needed by
human beings to sustain their lives can be scarce but, in animal life, scarcity also occurs and
it is not sufficient, as such, to cause low-ranking individuals to challenge the privileges of the dominant males.
Imitation or mimicry happens to be common to animals and men. It seems to me that a theory
of conflict based primarily on appropriative mimicry does not have the drawbacks of one
based on scarcity or on aggressivity; if it is correctly conceived and formulated it throws a
great deal of light on much of human culture, beginning with religious institutions.
Religious prohibitions make a good deal of sense when interpreted as efforts to prevent
mimetic rivalry from spreading
Readers choose
William Bernhardt
Tamar Cohen
W. Michael Gear, Kathleen O’Neal Gear
Liza Brown
S. Y. Robins
A.C. Arthur
Kate Messner
D.W. Moneypenny
Dr. Mark Mincolla